Meaning & readings
power, strength, strong, strain, bear up, exert
Origin
This character is a simple picture of a human arm or muscle, shown with a bend to suggest flexing or exertion. The two strokes represent the upper and lower parts of the arm, with the angle between them conveying the idea of strength or effort. Over time, the shape became more stylized, but the basic visual idea stayed the same: a flexed limb equals power and strength. That is why this character, which literally depicts a muscle at work, came to mean strength and the effort required to bear or exert force.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (力).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 2
- Kangxi radical
- 19
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #62 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+0529B